Oil Change For The More Experienced

By:Groomez

I've been a little dormant lately in contributing to advrider and I thought I'd share my process of an oil change. Yesterday I picked up some Repsol Fully Syn. 10W50 from Cycle Gear. KTM recommends Motorex and its nowhere to be found around here, let alone any 10W50. I got lucky and found some. I know there is a huge school of thought about what oil to use, but I'm not getting into it. I'll always use 10W50 fully synthetic for this KTM. I read up on all the oil change threads I could get my hands on as to have a clear idea in my head about what it is I'm about to do. It'll be my first oil change with the Orange One.

Lets begin, shall we?

The subject is a 5.5 950 with 12,170 miles on it. I bought it used back in September (??) and have had no problems with it. So far I added the black FMF pipes (badass and inexpensive) the luggage racks w/ Gobi bags and numerous decals. Canisterectomy hasn't been done yet nor has the SAS removal. I can't seem to find a comprehensive thread that covers this yet - so comment at will. I hope we all learn someting here.



Here is a pic of what I mainly used.
Repsol 10W50 Fully Synthetic ( I only used 3 out of 4 bottles seen in the pic)
Random Tools
Red Hook Ale
Rags
Oil Pan
2 ltr bottle
Owner's Manual
New Scotts Stainless Steel Oil Filter
Carb Cleaner (just in case, but didn't even need to use it.)


Prior to doing any work on a KTM you need to have essential items.
They are... Beer .... Good Tunes .... And Inspiration

I started out by removing the entire "skid plate" assembly as a whole via 2 front and 2 rear bolts with my trusty tools.

So far here we are. Skid plate removed and oil pan placed under bike. I threw some plastic around as well since the wind was blowing. This came in handy. Green bottle is my 2 ltr. I cut the top at an angle ahead of time. This is used to funnel the oil from the oil tank to the oil pan.

Next we warm up the bike with everything prepped underneath and ready to go, tools eagerly waiting. I let it idle for about 8-10 minutes and played with the idle adjustment some to make sure its right at 1400 rpms.
Once warmed up, turn the bike off and begin draining the oil from the engine via oil plug. I cleaned off the plug and set it aside. Barely any shavings. From here I finished my beer and grabbed another. As the oil drained into the pan, I began taking off the left fairing. The one where the infamous canister resides. Unscrew all mounting bolts, disconnect turn signal, disconnect the cross over (?) line from the white nipple, and other appropriate lines. In the last picture, you can clearly see what remains of the hoses once they have been pulled off the plastic nipples (I just love that word).

Btw.. is this the crazy canister that causes everyone problems? There is a KTM racing shop nearby (Neely's Racing) that I've been told do great work on 950's. Since I can't figure out for the life of me how to tackle it, I may end up letting them do it. But if anyone knows how to easily explain the process, I'm all ears.


Moving on... close all 3 fuel taps, remove fuel hoses from left tank, unsnap electrical fuel sensor, and nearby hose and set aside.


Oil should be drained from engine by now. I screwed the cleaned plug back in and pulled the oil screen and the old paper oil filter and inserted the Scotts. The screen had a few small flakes but nothing crazy. (whew, no citrus here!) Cleaned it up fine and dandy and reinstalled it. When doing so, ensure that the word TOP on the oil screen is facing up. Straight from the manual...

By now, I'm finishing up and need to drain the oil tank to finalize things. I didn't bother with the other screen in the tank since everything else looked fine to me. This is also where your funnel contraption comes in handy. Although after the first initial rythmic waves of oil came pouring out, I noticed that the funnel was no longer neccessary. But it did come in handy. I didn't get too fancy here. Some guys suck out the oil from the tank using a device of sorts. Do what you will, I just let it drain. It didn't take long at all.

There's really not much else left. When oil is drained from the tank, clean off the plug and screw it back in. This is where I'd check the screen in the oil tank by removing the oil return valve (the gnarly hose behind the drain plug). But we've already elected not to do it this time around. I started putting everything back together at this point - connecting the right hoses to the right places, mounting the tank, opening all 3 fuel taps etc.

When all is good to go...

...we just add oil. Poured in 2.5 L of the Repsol, started bike and let it idle for 4 minutes checked oil level and added remaining .5 L. After a good warm up, the oil level is good and engine sounds great.